Utter
by Silverweaver
Summary: No matter where they are, your parents can still surprise you. [Early season four, oneshot.]


**Disclaimer/ Schmoopy Dedication:** The O.C. is property of Fox. Written for Fredsmith518 for the Third OC Sentence Fic Challenge, who prompted me with "Ryan writes" and didn't hire a hitman when I never delivered.  
**Author's Note:** At this point, I realise I am actually abusing adverbs.

* * *

_  
I could tell you, if I wanted, what makes me what I am.  
But I don't really want to, and you don't give a damn._

Squinting into the sun as he checked over his shoulder, Ryan peeled his bike off the sidewalk and out into the road, ignoring the ache in his knees as he began the pull back up towards home.

From inside the mailbox, the letter was watching him and Ryan felt it scratch down his spine. He could see it sitting there, almost hear it calling out, telling him what a fool he was, that this was the going to come back to haunt him.

It did, of course. It always did.

* * *

Ryan shut the front door behind him and rested his weary body against it.

"Ryan? That you?" Seth's voice floated from upstairs.

"Yeah," he grunted with less energy than he wanted to muster. The extra shift had seemed like a good idea at the time, the time and a half he got for covering a sick colleague on zero notice an attractive proposition with the holidays round the corner, but man alive- it had been one hell of a long day.

"Mom was looking for you," Seth said, padding into view at the top of the stairs.

"Yeah?" Ryan said again, raising his eyebrows in a prompt for elaboration.

"I don't know what for. I already got us out of a midweek charity cocktail party, it's for NISA, whatever that is, something to do with dogs, or maybe that was Mom being subversive, I don't know, she had her wacky face on."

"What did you tell her?"

"That we loved her, but life was too short," Seth said, from his new perch on the top step. "She took it well."

"Thanks, man. She around?"

"Last seen wearing old jeans and looking thoughtfully at the disaster area Dad likes to call the Bondai Barbeque."

Ryan nodded and gave Seth a thumb up of thanks, cracking his friend's face into a wide smile of mockery.

"Thumb salutes, Journey? Dude, you're so eighties."

"Bite me," Ryan replied and picked himself up out his slouch, adding a salute of the single-fingered variety, as he headed out back.

"No thanks, I'll leave that to Taylor," Seth dropped back reflexively.

"I heard that."

Seth didn't care. This new Ryan Atwood was so much more fun than last year's.

* * *

Ryan found Kirsten right where Seth had placed her, filthy hands on now filthy hips and a filthier bucket of water by her feet, regarding the grill with disdain.

"Hey."

"Ryan!" Kirsten said nearly stepping into the bucket in surprise, "How was work?"

"Filled with teenage girls crushing on Mark the bartender again."

"Are you sure it's just Mark they were crushing on?" Kirsten said, with mischievous grin.

"You see, this is why I don't tell you how my day was," Ryan deadpanned with a stern glower.

"Torturing their offspring is what every parent lives for, you know that," said Kirsten, dropping a dirty rag into the bucket. "That and cleaning up after their spouse, obviously."

"Obviously."

"Sandy has been promising for weeks to clean this grill properly, but I just couldn't bear it any longer. The amount of grease trapped, I swear it was only hours away from evolving."

"Looks good," Ryan commented in genuine admiration at Kirsten's handiwork. "Sandy's going to love it."

"Oh, believe me, Sandy's not going anywhere near it, not unless he can correctly identify the location of the cleaning products as well as the Tabasco sauce," Kirsten declared decisively, taking the bucket and swirling the murky water down the drain.

"Sounds fair," Ryan replied, stepping away to avoid the splashback. "So Seth told me you were looking for me. He mentioned something about puppies? I couldn't tell if he was being serious, or-"

"- Just being Seth?"

Ryan shrugged, a half-smile flashing briefly, "Something like that."

"I did talk to him about a benefit Taryn's giving for an animal shelter, but don't worry I don't expect either of you to come," Kirsten said, her wry smile spreading to Ryan as she continued, "Believe me, I like dogs as much as the next person but your standard Newport fundraiser is bitchy enough without adding actual puppies into the mix."

"Not disagreeing," Ryan grinned.

"No, actually, it was something else I wanted to talk to you about," Kirsten said, her tone softening, the expression on her face became more serious.

"Okay," said Ryan doubtfully, his brow crinkling he tried to decipher it.

"A letter came for you today. The return address, well, unless things with Trey have changed, but I doubt it, we'd have heard-" Kirsten noticed Ryan's confusion growing and put a halt to her increasingly disordered train of thought.

"The letter, Ryan," She said, looking him in the eye, "I think it's from your father."

Ryan blinked, words dropping out of his grasp like boulders.

"The prison stamped it. I guess you wrote to him?" Kirsten asked softly.

"After Marissa, before I left-" Ryan replied dumbly, hating the memory of both, "I wanted it to work, and I thought… I don't know."

Ryan floundered looking to the floor for inspiration. With patient understanding Kirsten gave him the space to order the thoughts he so fervently wanted to make sense of, to find the words she could tell he needed to express.

"It seemed like the right thing to do. The right time." Ryan looked to Kirsten, seeking reassurance in her countenance before continuing. "It can't have been more than a week before I went. Tell you the truth, I forgot all about it."

"It's okay," Kirsten said gently, "You don't have to explain yourself to me-"

"- I know I don't." Ryan snapped, surprising her with the sudden harshness in his tone, "He's my dad."

"- I know, I just meant-"

"- Yeah, I know." Ryan sighed, rubbing at his eyes with his thumb, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I just… he's my dad."

"Yeah, I know," Kirsten said, her own faint sigh echoing Ryan's. "They never make it easy for us, do they?"

Ryan smiled, "Not really."

Mindful of her charcoaled hands and grease-stained apron, Kirsten moved to Ryan and pulled him into a loose hug.

"Whatever happens, trust me that's one thing that never going to change," Kirsten said, squeezing him as close as she dared, "And neither does the fact we love you."

"Me too," Ryan said, letting Kirsten pull him in closer and he knew whatever the letter said, whatever his Dad had written to him, whatever might happen in the future didn't matter much nearly as this did.

Now was enough.


End file.
